19th century

Due to the loss of his wife in 1825 when he was away and there was no quick method of informing Samuel Morse of his wife's death, he vowed to develop a means of communication that was faster than a letter. He would on the concept and developed the telegraph between 1830s to 1840s. Beside a better means of communication, there was a whole new occupa...

Known as 'hair art' it has been a form of art that began in the 16th century or earlier, and flourished in the Victorian era (1800s). It was used by people wanting to keep a memento of a loved one before the invention of photography. Hair art originated in England and France and then made its way to the United States. This form of art can take the ...

You may have seen photos of some of your female ancestors wearing a piece of camphor glass jewelry or you might have inherited a piece, but did you know about this once very popular style of jewelry?
Camphor glass is clear glass that has been treated with hydrofluoric acid vapors to give it a soft, lovely frosted, whitish appearance. This effect r...

As you put together stories and points of interest about your ancestors, especially your grandparents and great grandparents, a good comparison to add were their daily life events that were very common for your ancestors to do that you today have no concept or experience in.
It does help future generations see how life has changed and some things ...

The newest databases to search from Ancestry.com is for Births-Marriages and Deaths in Ontario, Canada. With it being on the northern border with the United States, many individuals on both sides have been in the US and / or Canada, especially in Ontario.
Using the subscript-fee site with three important area – births – marriages – deaths, y...

You can get frustrated when trying to locate any images of some of your ancestors. You have checked with other relatives, to see what they have, but you may need to go beyond. Unfortunately, people cleaning out estates sold off vintage family photo albums.
Using the online site 'Lost Faces' may be of some assistance. They have collected many vinta...

It is not always been traditional to have a June wedding. In Victorian England (from 1840s to early 1900), many weddings took place on Christmas Day and Boxing Day (a day after Chrisman Day when employers distributed money, food, cloth (material) or other valuable goods to their employees). Working class people typically worked six days a week in t...

So popular … all family albums were long narrow black sheets of paper with the treasured photos totally pasted to a page or later the use of the four corner small tabs to whole a photo in place without placing paste on the back. The album covers were leather or thick cardboard material. These type of albums dating back to the 1870s and for 50 to ...

Think politics and elections are wild now in the 21st century, they were crazy wild in the 1870s and 1880s in America. Yet, roughly 30 to 40% today turn out to vote.
The Federal mid-term elections for your ancestors back in the 1880s had roughly 80% of the voting public turned out – now that is only white and black men since the ladies still did...

If you have found that some of your early ancestors in America lived in Massachusetts Colony and were of a specific church (Puritan, Congregational, and Christian denominations) you are in special luck. Now available online from the Congregational Library and Archives are the church records from many early individual churches in Massachusetts. Thes...